Anarchist Zine Archive

Fat Mutual Aid

[Image description: A comic panel hand-drawn by

Max Airborne. The words “FAT MUTUAL AID” are in
large letters across the top. In the square below, two

fat friends sit in a medical exam room, waiting for the
doctor. One sits on an exam table, wearing a too-small
paper gown that’s open in the back, showing their naked
back side. They face their friend, who sits on a chair,
holding open a large pamphlet or zine, entitled “How to
Resist: Making Sure the Doctor Doesn’t Kill You & Your
Fat Comrades.” A fat fist is on the zine cover, the word
“RESIST” on its wrist. A clock, a stethoscope and a blood
pressure machine hang on the wall. ]

Contents

Fat Mutual Aid
by Max Airborne page 1

Pod Map Template
by Mia Mingus/BATJC page 8
(creative commons license)

Pod Mapping for Mutual Aid
by Rebel Sidney Black page 10
(reproduced with permission of the author)

(Other) Resources page 15

Cover image

Sperm whale pod defense

When danger approaches, a pod of sperm whales
encircles the pod members who are more vulnerable.
(Thanks to Katie Loncke for sharing this inspiration.)

Illustrations by Max Airborne

Articles

Abolish Time (Estelle Ellison)
@abolish_time on Instagram

Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability
Justice (Mia Mingus) leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Cripping the Resistance: No Revolution Without Us
(Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, post at Disability
Visibility Project) bit.ly/crip-resistance

How Disabled Mutual Aid is Different Than Abled
Mutual Aid (Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, post
at DVP) bit.ly/disabled-mutual-aid

Insurrectionary Mutual Aid (Curious George Brigade)
theanarchistlibrary.org

POOR Magazine poormagazine.org

Books

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-
Blackness (Da’Shaun L. Harrison)

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (Leah Lakshmi
Piepzna-Samarasinha)

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and
the Next) (Dean Spade)

16

FAT MUTUAL AID

by Max Airborne
10/04/21

Why Fat Mutual Aid?

In this era of environmental crises, pandemics, and the
visibility of community efforts to care for each other,

I want to address fat-specific mutual aid. I’m speaking
here mostly to fat people, but I think these ideas are
also important for all those doing mutual aid projects
in communities where there are fat people, which is
everywhere.

Fat people are often excluded from community mutual
aid efforts (e.g. lack of awareness and/or care about fat
risks or access needs). Fat people can also be targeted
by mutual aid efforts in dangerous, fat-hating ways
(e.g. “food justice” projects that focus on fat kids losing
weight).

Many folks on the left, including folks doing mutual aid
work, have not questioned the dominant narrative that
says fat people are to blame for our fatness, and that
fatness should be eradicated. This results in a culture
of shaming, neglect, mistreatment, surveillance and
punishment toward fat people that is isolating & deadly.

Fat people, disabled people, and other folks often pushed
to the margins need to be part of community organizing
and mutual aid just like everyone else. We are not
disposable.

There are fat people doing a lot to care for each other
— personal care, resource sharing, emotional support,
community organizing, advocacy, providing fat
liberated-zones for each other.

Fat people have the best wisdom about
surviving and living fat life.
We need each other to survive.

And, Iam still dreaming of a world in which our lives
are considered important beyond our silos. Many fat
people are isolated. Fat people are left to die in disasters
(both hurricanes Katrina and Sandy saw this). I want

a world with such strong solidarity, and fat-and-crip
liberated community mutual aid that these murders
would be impossible.

What is Mutual Aid?

Mutual Aid is people working together democratically
to figure out how to meet each other’s needs, while also
organizing against the oppressive systems that are
creating or exacerbating the needs.

Mutual Aid is, by definition, revolutionary. Caring for
each other is a threat to established society. The state
doesn’t care for us and it will not save us. Mutual aid is
about survival, working together, and building solidarity
and collective power to dismantle oppressive systems
and build the world we want.

If we dream of a world in which all beings are cherished,
practicing mutual aid is one way to start embodying
that world. If our mutual aid efforts are really going to
be part of movement building and world changing, they
need to include fat and disabled people.

2

Resources

Tools & Connections
Big Door Brigade mutual aid toolkit: bigdoorbrigade.com

Fat-Assed Prepper Survival Tips for Preparing for a
Coronavirus Quarantine: bit.ly/FatSurvival

Fat Mutual Aid: You can download a PDF of this zine at
fatrose.org

Half Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for Preparing for a
Coronavirus Quarantine, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-
Samarasinha. bit.ly/disprepguide

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief mutualaiddisasterrelief.org

Pod Mapping for Mutual Aid (Rebel Sidney Black)
bit.ly/podmap-mutualaid

Pods and Printable Pod Mapping Worksheet (Mia
Mingus and BATJC) bit.ly/podmapping

Survival for Folks Who Need #PowerToLive During a
Power Shutoff. bit.ly/powertoliveguide

[Image description: Drawing of a fat person with short
hair serving soup with a giant ladle from a giant pot into
a bowl. In the background a long table with folks seated
ready to eat by candlelight, and the word NOURISH. ]

15

[Image description: A Image description: whiteboard
with circles in four different colors and names in each
circle. My name in the middle pink circle. My pod in
purple circles. Moveable people in teal dotted circles
around the pod. Groups where I can get support in red
circles at the outside. |

Use this tool in the way that works for you. And don’t
forget where it came from—this is a resource created

by BATJC to designate who could be a support in being
accountable for harm, holding someone else accountable
for harm, or who could help you if you witnessed harm.
Honor where it came from and who created it.

Lots of love,

Rebel Sidney Black
facebook.com/rebelblackOO7
rebelsidneyblack@gmail.com

Many communities have been practicing mutual aid
forever. And the forces of white supremacy, capitalism,
colonialism, patriarchy, and other oppressive systems
have for generations been working to disempower us:
severing our connections to each other, to the land, to
our own bodies. Mutual aid is a way to uncover what we
know deep in our bones — that survival and connection
and belonging are our earth rights.

What is Fat Mutual Aid?

When I think about fat mutual aid, I think first about fat
people supporting each other, and how vital this is and
has been to our survival and wellbeing. I doubt I would
be alive without the fat people who have cared for me.

Fat people, especially politicized fat people, have taught
me how to live in the fat body I have, how to care for my
fat self, how to navigate the fat-hating world and how to
fight for fat liberation. Fat people provide empathy and
outrage when I deal with anti-fatness, and celebration
when I experience fat joy. Fat people help me feel less
alone. Fat people show me what’s possible.

All of this is mutual aid.

Here are some recent, concrete examples I’ve seen of
activities that I think could be called “fat mutual aid,”
because they are mutual aid efforts that include and
meet the needs of fat people. Most of these occurred in
fat liberation community.

¢ A fundraiser for a fat, disabled person who needs a
scooter

e Support when a fat person is sick
¢ Connecting with fat folks who are isolated

3

¢ A fat clothing swap/giveaway/benefit sale
¢ Organizing or offering fat/crip-accessible housing

¢ Organizing fat/crip communities targeted for denial
of care during a pandemic

¢ A gathering of fat folks sharing fat hygiene wisdom

e Showing up for the family of a fat person killed by
police

¢ Supporting a fat person with house tasks
e Sharing and nurturing joy with fat folks

e Finding generators and batteries for folks who need
electricity to power CPAPs, ventilators and other
medical devices during a wildfire season power
shutoff

¢ Checking in on fat folks during emergencies

e Sharing tools and resources that support fat bodies

¢ Supporting a fat person to deal with their fat-hating
family

e Witnessing, listening, emotional support

e Planning a fundraiser for superfat folks who need
clothes

¢ Fat folks cooking together, or for each other
e Supporting fat elders, fat crips, fat youth...

¢ Bringing a friend to a medical appointment to
provide witness, solidarity and advocacy

e Sharing personal care: foot care, washing, skin care,
hair cuts

¢ Giving a fat person an accessible car ride
Some of these are examples of fat people connecting

with each other. But not all of them. Fat mutual aid can
and often does include the non-fat people in our lives.

4

(Mutual aid is mutual.)

The dotted lines are people who are movable—they could
become part of your pod if you have some conversations
and build relationships.

The larger circles on the outside are bigger community
groups, networks, organizations, etc that could be
resources for you.

Here’s my pod map as an example. I don’t have
everyone’s skills written down because I still need

to have those conversations. But as I have more
information, I can continue to fill it in. Like, “Do you
want to be part of my disaster survival mutual aid pod?
OK cool, what do you feel like you can contribute? I can
bring meals and groceries, provide emotional support,
and have a couple extra inhalers. We have a safe place
where you can come and stay in our guest room if you
need it.”

PDX ai
DISABIL
coumwect po

13

Here’s what the pod mapping worksheet looks like:

[Image description: A page of circles. One central gray
circle, surrounded by several layers of other circles.
Closest are 6 dark-ringed circles. Next outward are

13 dotted-line circles. On the outside are 14 circles of
varying larger sizes. ]

In the center circle, write your name.

The dark circles are your pod. It’s important to write
specific names, as well as what supports they can
provide. Is it a neighbor who has a generator that will
charge your wheelchair when the electricity is out? Is
it someone who can buy and drop off groceries? What
about a friend who will take care of you when you’re
sick? Talk to your people and ask what they feel able
to provide. Then ask them what they need from you to
be in their pod, or let them know what you can offer.

12

Fat people are everywhere, in every community. Our
lives and experiences are inseparable from the world,
and determined by all the other, intertwined aspects of
our existence — race, class, gender, ability, sexuality,
and more. In addition to our own efforts to support
each other, we need the support of allies, and we need
to be supported as fat people within the contexts of our
whole, diverse communities. We need our experiences to
be heard and respected. We need our lives to be valued,
in the bodies we have now. We need this revolution to
abolish fat hatred and ableism.

Fat Mutual Aid Pods

An important way to access the kind of mutual aid we
need is to create a group, or “pod,” that’s focused on it.
A “pod” isasmall group of people who self-organize to
provide support to each other in whatever ways they
mutually agree to.

A few examples of pods:

¢ Anatural disaster mutual aid pod that prepares for
and deals with emergencies together.

¢ ACOVID pod who all agree to protect each other from
infection.

¢ A mutual aid pod that comes together in response to
a person’s or group’s specific or general needs

e Atransformative justice pod, meant to support
someone who has been harmed, or to support
accountability for someone who has caused harm.
(introduced by Bay Area Transformative Justice
Collective)

« An organizing pod, more often called an “affinity
group,” that does direct action together.

°

One example of a fat mutual aid pod:

All members are fat, long-term friends. The group
shares information, emotional support, witnessing,
fun, food, cooking, medicine, CPAPs, money and other
resources, foot care, haircuts, skin care, checking on
each other, healthcare advocacy, housing as needed,
rides... Members of the pod have different needs at
different times, and the pod members seek and offer
support as needed.

Some of the support mentioned in this example involves
trust and an understanding of each other’s access
needs, or “access intimacy” (a term from Mia Mingus).
These relationships will take time to develop if people
don’t know each other well from the start. That’s ok!

You don’t need to be coupled or partnered to be in a
pod. Let’s debunk the myth that the only place we can
build trust and intimacy is in the context of a sexual
relationship.

If your mutual aid pod includes people who aren’t fat,
there may need to be more trust building and education
about fat bodies, anti-fatness and the specific needs and
abilities of the fat folks in the pod. It’s important that
your pod be curious about you and your needs, and that
you develop enough trust in the group that you can
share honestly what your needs are.

Sometimes as fat people we might be reluctant to ask
for or receive help, especially from folks who aren’t

fat or explicitly in support of fat people. We have
received lifetimes of blame, shaming, and abuse for our
fat bodies. It’s no surprise that we might not feel safe
acknowledging or exposing our needs. It takes time to
build trust.

6

ends meet, getting needs met, and who need social
support to survive. I’m thinking of my houseless and
elderly neighbors, my immunocompromised friends who
may need food but also protection from any germs I may
be carrying. ’'m thinking about how we survive together
rather than apart. Even if together means Zoom
hangouts, texting, leaving groceries on the doorstep and
not coming in to say hi.

Mutual aid can happen between two, twenty, or two
hundred people (or more! ). A good place to start,
though, is with your “people.” Whether that’s your one
best friend, some folks from church, or the handful of
acquaintances you never hang out with but who came
through that one time when things were really tough,
it’s important to assess who would show up for you ina
crisis or emergency, and who you’d do the same for.

This is where “pod mapping” comes in. Originally
developed by Mia Mingus for the Bay Area
Transformative Justice Collective, pod mapping is a tool
specifically for accountability and dealing with harm in
communities. However, it can also be adapted to help
you assess who you can rely on in a pinch—who you’d
turn to for support and who would turn to you. These
groups may or may not overlap. You may also have
different pods for different situations.

A “pod” is a microcosm of “community.” Since it’s more
concrete, it’s easier to get organized—to connect, make a
plan, and follow through if and when it’s needed. There
may be certain qualities you look for in the folks in your
pod(s): maybe they’re really reliable, well-resourced,
generous, committed, kind. Maybe they have certain
skills that you don’t and need. Maybe they live nearby.

11

Pod Mapping
for Mutual Aid

By Rebel Sidney Black
6/9/2020

Mutual aid can look many different ways. Those

of us who are sick and disabled, black, indigenous,
multiracial, and people of color, poor, working class,
immigrants, queer, trans, two spirit, and more, probably
already practice mutual aid and may not even know

it. Mutual aid is that random person from the internet
bringing a hot meal when you can’t get out of bed, it’s
cleaning or spiritually cleansing the home of someone
who’s too severely depressed to do it themselves, it’s
staying up late talking to that suicidal friend, helping
unpack an apartment after someone moves, giving
rides to chemo, visiting or writing letters to folks in
prison, walking someone’s dogs when they can’t walk
them themself. It can also look like sharing coping
skills, survival skills, job search skills. Mutual aid can
be sharing medicine, making medicine, helping sift
through allopathic doctors to find a good fit, or referring
someone to that awesome working class naturopath
you know. Mutual aid can also be fighting to change the
structural causes of oppression so that everyone can be
more free.

I’m writing this as COVID-19 is taking hold in my region,
people are talking about social distancing as a form of
survival, and I’m thinking about all the people who are
already housebound and having a hard time making

10

Getting Started witha
Fat Mutual Aid Pod

1. When you think about fat mutual aid, what do you
need? And what can you offer?

Who’s in your pod? Start by thinking about the
people closest to you and what skills, resources and
care you can offer each other.

2. Check out the next article, “Pod Mapping for Mutual
Aid” — by Rebel Sidney Black, who offers a good
example of how to map the people and groups in your
life using the BATJC map style.

You may already be part of a pod, or something like
a pod — acare team or affinity group or a group of
friends or kin or other kind of community. In my
experience, one advantage of actually naming it
something (whether “pod” or something else) is that
it can create space for conversations about what we
each want or need, as well as to get explicit about
shared intentions, expectations, boundaries, and
agreements.

3. Follow this conversation and connect with other
fat mutual aid organizers at @fatmutualaid on
Instagram, or at fatrose.org

Shout out to the fatties, crips, fat liberation, disability
justice and BIPOC communities for sharing so much
wisdom about how we can survive by connecting with
each other.

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